Dead troops' families charged up to £600 for inquest papers

The families of troops killed in Iraq are being charged hundreds of pounds to obtain official documents relating to their deaths.

In one shocking case, a grieving father was asked to pay £600 to photocopy papers from his son's inquest.

The bureaucratic costs of families' search for the truth about the deaths of loved ones was made public after a meeting between service relatives and Constitutional Affairs Minister Harriet Harman.

The highest charges are understood to have been made by coroner's court officials.

Documents the families could have been forced to pay for include pathology and toxicology reports, witness statements and expert evidence.

Most of the inquests of service personnel killed in Iraq have been carried out by Oxfordshire coroner Nicholas Gardiner. His court has a backlog of more than 100 cases.

Grieving relatives said yesterday that the costs to a family investigating a death are very high.

Samantha Roberts, widow of tank commander Sergeant Steve Roberts - who was shot dead in 2003 after being ordered to hand back his body armour because the Army did not have enough to go round - said she had spent many thousands of pounds in her hunt for the truth.

'There are bills for documents and they can be very steep,' she said.

'In the case of papers obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, it can be £50 a time. But families feel they have to find the money. I am paying my own lawyer's bill, but to get to the bottom of Steve's death, I would sell my house. It's something you have to do.'

Miss Harman told relatives of 16 dead service personnel she would discuss the costs with Defence Secretary Des Browne.

She said: 'If they wanted those piles of documents they had to pay by page. One guy paid £600. He didn't think that was fair. Nobody thought it was fair that they have to pay for documents the coroner has got and the Army has got.

'It is all about disclosure, transparency, openness and warning in advance.

'They were very concerned that somebody in the future should have a better experience than they did. They were insistent.'

She added: 'We do not want to have to wait for a new law to come into force to do better for the families of servicemen and women.'

Families also discovered information had been blanked out once the papers had been supplied, she said.

Miss Harman's Department for Constitutional Affairs confirmed that the main problem had been with documents provided by coroner's courts, which are accountable to Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, and that one individual had been charged £600.

The Ministry of Defence said that it provided Army Board of Inquiry reports into military deaths and related documents without charge.

The backlog of cases at the Oxfordshire court has caused deep unhappiness among bereaved families.

Although three assistant coroners have been hired to tackle the work, long delays remain.

Figures released next week are expected to show that the number of cases in the queue has finally dropped below 100 - but the tally does not include military deaths since July.

Miss Harman is pushing through reforms of the coroners'

court system intended to produce greater openness and efficiency - although she has been criticised for a proposal to allow the courts to sit in secret.

The backlog of military inquests at the Oxfordshire court was revealed by the Daily Mail last year.

One of the causes of the delay was a refusal by the Ministry of Defence to pay £100,000 for extra staff for the coroner - at a time when ministers had sanctioned the spending of more than £100,000 to send court staff involved in the trial of Paratroopers accused of murdering an Iraqi teenager on a fact-finding trip to Iraq.